Collection 2003 - From The Listening Hills (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Monte followed and did not try to hide his progress. Ash caught sight of him, paralleling their track about one hundred yards west and pointed him out to Paula. They didn’t like it, but there was little they could do.

  THE SUN WAS hot and Monte had long since folded his jacket into the haversack. Neither of them had a hat and he did, and unlike Ash, Monte kept his shirt sleeves rolled down. He picked up a piece of float and examined it. They were walking steadily, but Paula lagged a little, and he had an idea that Paula wanted to bargain on her own. Obviously, she wanted to talk.

  Ash slowed. “Come on, honey! If we’re going to get anywhere we’ve got to keep moving!”

  “You go ahead. I’ll be right behind. I can’t walk fast in these shoes.”

  Ash walked on, Paula glanced around and Monte let his head show over the ridge. She stopped at once. “I want to talk to you,” she invited. “Come on down!”

  Selecting his spot, he sat down, making her come to him. When she was twenty yards away, he stopped her. “Close enough!” he said. “What do you want?”

  Paula obviously wanted to come closer. She was accustomed to getting what she wanted from men, although after a night in a jeep she was considerably less attractive than he remembered her. “Why don’t you forget this and come in with me?” she invited. “You’ve got a rifle, and we don’t need him. There’s a lot of money.”

  “What about that rap in L.A.?”

  “We could say it was Ash. Come on, my husband was insured for seventy thousand dollars, and the house besides! Think what we could do with that!”

  “Just think!” he said sarcastically. “Seventy thousand dollars, and us on the run for the rest of our lives. Funny, it doesn’t sound like enough to me.”

  She stared at him, trying to figure him out. At that moment Ash showed over the last rise. When he saw them together he shouted and started to run toward them.

  Jackson leaned his elbows on his knees and calculated the distance. The fool! Didn’t he know he shouldn’t run that hard in this heat? He watched him come. The effective range of a pistol is not great, but the actual range is greater than supposed. He would take no chances. He lifted the rifle. Ash slowed, then stopped, panting hoarsely. “No you don’t!” he shouted. “You don’t cross me up!”

  Paula stared at him. “Quick!” she said eagerly. “Shoot him!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not much interested in money. And, it’s really not that much money.”

  “It’s enough!” she protested. “…and you could have me.” She stepped forward, as if offering herself to him.

  He grinned at her. “You should see yourself!” Her makeup was streaked and her hair mussed and dulled by dust. She’d been attractive back in the bar in Riverside, but here…

  “I’d rather just take the money,” he said.

  She screamed, her face contorted, hurling epithets at him. Ash had come closer and now he brought up the pistol, so Monte stood, and with four sprinting steps was in the brush and rocks beyond the arroyo.

  From his concealment he could hear their angry voices, and then Ash showed on the crest, the muzzle of his pistol a questing eye. His face was haggard and strained, his shirt soaked with sweat. He wouldn’t sweat much longer.

  Monte took a pull at the canteen and rested in the shade of a clump of brush. Walking was okay but the running did not do his head any good. When he looked again they had started on and made almost half a mile. Paula Burgess looked beaten.

  After a while he moved to follow, staying in the shade from the nearby ridge. When he again saw them they had stopped and were seated near some saltbush. They had reached the fork of the old desert trail.

  From this point it branched south and then west to Keeler and north across the vast waste of the Saline Valley, waterless and empty. Paula had her shoes off and so did Ash. Obviously, they’d had enough although they’d come just five miles from the jeep. From where he crouched in the shadow of a rock he could see their faces were beginning to blister, and their lips looked puffed and cracked.

  “How about it?” he called. “Want to write out a confession, and sign it? I’ve got water, you know.”

  Neither made a reply, nor did they speak to each other.

  He’d heard that it was typical of criminals that they are optimistic and always see themselves as successful. This seemed to have left these two with few resources when faced with failure.

  “It’s only three. Even once the sun goes down the heat will hang on because it takes time for the rocks to cool off. By six it should be better. If you’re alive then.”

  “Give us a break!” Ash pleaded.

  “You’re not far from water. A couple of hundred feet straight down.”

  “Listen!” Ash got up. “I’d nothing to do with this! She roped me in on it, and I had no idea she was going to kill anybody!”

  His voice was hoarse and it hurt him to speak. “That’s tough,” Monte agreed, “toss your gun over here and we’ll discuss it.”

  “Nothing doing!”

  “Forget it then. I won’t even talk until I have that pistol.”

  Heat waves danced in the distance and a dust devil picked a swirl of dust from the valley floor and skipped weirdly across the desert until it died far away in the heat-curtained distance. Ash had moved nearer, and now Paula was hobbling toward him.

  “Throw me the gun! Otherwise I’m going back to my claim!”

  Ash hesitated, standing there with one hand in his pocket, his face drawn and haggard.

  “You fool!” Paula screamed at him. “Give me that!” She grabbed the hand emerging from the pocket and before he could move to prevent her she pointed it at Monte.

  He flattened out and the gun barked viciously. Sand stung his face and in a panic he rolled over into the low place behind him and, grabbing his rifle, broke into a run, dodging into the brush even as she topped the rise where he had been lying.

  Ash shouted at her, but Paula was beyond reason, firing wildly. Monte hit shelter behind a boulder, then heard Paula scream once more, the gun sounded again and he looked back. They were standing on the rise, struggling furiously, with Paula clawing at his face. But then Ash was backing away, and he had the gun.

  “Four shots,” Monte warned himself. “There’s more to come.”

  “Come on back! You can have the gun if you’ll give us water!”

  Monte was beyond easy pistol range. He got to his feet and lifted the rifle. “Fire another shot, and I leave you for the buzzards!”

  He walked toward them, watching Ash. “Give me the gun and I’ll tell you where there’s water.”

  Ash hesitated no longer, but tossed the gun toward Monte. Jackson picked it up by the trigger guard, carefully wrapped it in his handkerchief and dropped it into the haversack.

  Their faces were fiery red and there were ugly streaks on the man’s cheek where it had been raked by Paula’s fingernails. She stared at Monte, her eyes sullen with hatred. She was no longer pretty, for the desert sun and the bitterness of her hatred had etched lines into her face.

  “There’s water in the radiator of your jeep,” he told them.

  “Huh?” Hope flared, then died in the man’s eyes. “Aw, hell, man, give us a break!”

  “Like she gave her husband? Like you planned to give me? Many a man’s been damned glad to get water out of a radiator and stay alive. It’s only five miles from here.”

  He watched them, studying their faces. “Or, you can write out complete confessions, one for each of you, and then I’ll see that you both drink.”

  Their faces were sullen. “You know,” he added, “you’re not really in a bad way yet. Soon it’ll start getting complicated. You’re losing salt, without it your bodies won’t be able to process water even if I give you some…you could die of dehydration in a swimming pool.” He took a salt pill out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “Soon water really won’t be the problem.”

  They looked at each other in something approaching horr
or. He could see that they could just barely imagine what another two days would be like.

  “That’s not human!” Paula protested. “You can’t do a thing like that to a woman!”

  “Look who’s talking! You started this!” He shook his head. “I don’t care what happens to you. When a woman starts killing she is entitled to no special treatment.”

  He sat down on a rock, but it was much too hot and he got up immediately. Neither of them were sweating now. Their skins looked parched and dry. “Ash could probably get off with a few years. You’ll have as much of a lawyer as you can buy, and who knows what a good lawyer can do. Out here it’s a different thing…there’s going to be no appeal when the sun comes up tomorrow.”

  Without warning, Ash leaped at him, swinging, and instantly, Paula darted forward, her eyes maniacal.

  Monte sprang back and, swinging the rifle, clipped Ash alongside the head with the barrel. He turned, and sank the butt into Paula’s stomach. They both went down, though Monte had pulled the blows. Ash wasn’t even bleeding.

  “Don’t be foolish,” he said. “Exertion will only make the end come quicker. You’ve both stopped sweating, that’s usually a bad sign.”

  Ash cursed, glaring up at him from the ground.

  Monte Jackson walked away and when thirty yards off, lifted the canteen and took a long pull, then sloshed the water audibly. They stared at him, their hatred displaced only by thirst. Knowing the desert, he knew neither of these people were as badly off as they believed, but by noon tomorrow…

  “You think it over.” He took a pad and pencil from his pocket, the pencil strapped to the pad with a rubber band. “When you’re ready, start writing.” He laid it on the ground.

  Then he turned and walked into the desert toward a small corner of shade. His life, his freedom, everything depended on success, and if he failed now it would leave him in an even worse position with the law.

  THE HOUR DRAGGED slowly by, then another half hour. They were no longer at the fork when he walked back, but their tracks were plain. They were returning to the jeep.

  He turned off toward Dodd’s Spring, drank, then refilled the canteen. They had taken the pad and pencil with them. He walked slowly after them; when he caught up, they were still a mile from the jeep, and both were seated. Ash, behind a clump of brush, was writing on the pad, squinting his eyes against the sun’s glare on the paper.

  THE SHERIFF CAME at noon on the following day, driving up to Dodd’s Spring in a jeep with Ragan on the seat beside him, and Slim Garner in the rear to show the way. Behind them was a weapons carrier with three more deputies. Monte Jackson walked down from the rocks to meet them.

  “How are you, Jackson?” He had talked several times with the sheriff in Baker and elsewhere. “Ragan tells me you’ve had some trouble.”

  “Did Slim tell you what I told him?”

  “He sure did. You know where they are?”

  “Up the road a few miles. Let’s go.” He got into the jeep beside Garner. While they rode he handed the two confessions to Ragan. “That about covers it. Right now there’s a chance they will both talk. Ash figures he will get off because he didn’t actually kill anybody.”

  “We got a few facts,” Ragan admitted. “Somebody planned to burn the house, all right. We found the oil-soaked rags and some spilled kerosene on the counter in the kitchen. Lucky for all of us the place didn’t burn completely. Then we found out about Ash Clark, he’s the guy down there, right? He promised his landlady payment in a few days, said he was coming into money. It’s definitely a case with a few loose ends.”

  Monte took the pistol from the haversack, and Ragan accepted it as the trucks rolled to a stop. Paula Burgess was haggard and the blazing desert sun had burned her fiercely. Ragan cuffed them and put them in with the deputies. Then they all turned and headed for town. Monte Jackson relaxed, looking back as the long desert road spun out behind the jeep. Long shadows stretched across the landscape, and dust devils danced like ghosts on the wide, sandy flats. A mirage glowed in the distance, looking for all the world like a cool and placid lake.

  The desert, he thought, can be a friendly place…if only one showed it the proper respect.

  Waltz Him Around Again, Shadow

  DEKE MURPHY, WRANGLER for the Stockman’s Rodeo in Bluff Springs, drew back against the corral, his keen gray eyes on the girl who was passing with Bill Bly, the rodeo star. In the three days he had been in town, Deke had seen the girl several times—and had fallen completely in love with her. As for Bly, Deke would not have liked him even if he had not been with Carol Bell.

  The boots with their rundown heels, faded Levi’s and his patched wool shirt made Murphy a distinct contrast to the immaculate gray of Bly’s rodeo costume, but the contrast did not end there.

  Bill Bly was a splendidly built man, two hundred and ten pounds of muscle, and easily over six feet. He was cock of the walk, looked it, acted it, and wanted it known. Bill Bly was the hero of the rodeo world and Deke Murphy was an unknown, a hard-faced youngster who had dropped off a freight train and rustled a job handling stock for the rodeo.

  Bly and the girl halted by the corral and peered through the horizontal bars to watch the milling horses. “I’d like to ride that Highbinder horse,” Bly told the girl. “He’s the worst horse in this show an’ a man could make a good ride up on him. The judges always watch the men who come out on bad horses. The Highbinder’s never been rode.”

  He glanced tolerantly at Deke, who leaned against the corral, eyes for nothing and nobody but Carol Bell. “That Highbinder’s plenty bad, ain’t he, boy?”

  Deke Murphy bristled. He disliked being called “boy.” He was all of twenty-two, and they had been rough years, even by the standards of the West. “Not really,” he said.

  A shadow of dislike appeared in Bly’s eyes. He was used to being yessed by the wranglers. “I suppose you could ride him?” he suggested sarcastically.

  “I reckon,” Deke said calmly. “Anyway, he’s easy compared to that Shadow horse.” He nodded toward the lean, narrow-headed grulla that idled alone near the far wall of the corral. “Shadow will pitch circles around him!”

  Bly looked for the first time at the sleepy, mouse-colored horse. “Him? He couldn’t buck four sour apples!” Bly glanced again at Murphy. “If you think you can ride the Highbinder,” he said, with amusement, “you should be in the show! You’d be better than half the riders we’ve got! Maybe better than all of them!”

  “Maybe,” Deke said shortly, starting to turn away. But Bly’s voice stopped him, and he turned back.

  “Just for fun,” Bly said, “an’ since you’re such a good rider, I’ll bet you twenty bucks you can’t stay up ten seconds on Sonora, there.”

  Sonora, a mean-eyed buckskin with a splash of white on one hip, stared thoughtfully at them. Deke glanced at him.

  “I can ride him,” he said.

  “Then put up your money! Talk is cheap!” Bly taunted.

  Deke flushed. “I can ride him!” he said stubbornly, but he glanced left and right, looking for an escape.

  “Come on!” Bly insisted, his eyes sneering at Deke under the guise of affability. “You said you could ride him! Let’s see you do it! Put up your money!”

  Several people had gathered around, and among them was a man of sixty-odd years, a white-haired man with keen blue eyes and a worn Stetson.

  “Don’t insist, Bill!” Carol said gently. “Maybe he doesn’t feel like riding!”

  “All right, honey.” Bly looked back at Murphy. “Don’t let me hear any more of that big talk! You got to put up or shut up,” he said sharply.

  Slowly the crowd drifted away and Deke Murphy turned miserably toward the corral, leaning against it, his head down. He had been made to look like a four-flusher. Anyway you take it, she would think he was a piker, a loud mouth. But how could he admit he didn’t have twenty dollars? Or ten, or even five? How could he admit in front of Carol that he was broke?

  She didn’t
know him, and she probably never would. She would not care, but he did. He cared desperately. From the first moment he had seen her, he knew she was the girl for him, and yet the gulf that separated them was bottomless.

  “You think that Shadow horse can buck?” The voice was friendly.

  Murphy looked up. “You just bet he can buck!” he said sharply. “Highbinder won’t come near him!”

  “You seen him?” the man persisted. It was the oldish man with the blue eyes and white hair, his brown face seamed and wind worn.

  “Me? Why, uh, not exactly.” Deke’s words stumbled and he hesitated. “A friend of mine told me about him.”

  “I see.” The old man nodded. “I’m Tim Carson. Been around long?”

  “Just pulled in,” Deke admitted, “I don’t know nobody here. Saw this rodeo, an’ braced ’em for a job feedin’ an’ waterin’ stock.”

  “Got any money?”

  Deke’s head came up sharply, his eyes cold and bitter. “That just ain’t none of your business!” he said.

  Carson shrugged. “If you had money you wouldn’t get so het up about it,” he said. “Figured you might need a few bucks for grub an’ such.”

  Murphy studied him suspiciously.

  “What do I have to do?” he demanded. “I won’t do nothing crooked an’ I won’t take money for nothin’.”

  “I figured on a loan, but if you want to earn it—” Carson waved a hand at the buckskin. “Throw a saddle on that horse an’ I’ll pay off if you ride him.”

  “How much?” Deke demanded.

  “Oh, say twenty bucks!” Carson suggested.

  “What you want to see me ride him for?” Deke asked cautiously.

  “See if I’m right or not,” Carson said. “I figure I know folks. I figure the only reason you wouldn’t get up on that horse was because you didn’t have the money to bet an’ wouldn’t admit it in front of that girl.”

  “Old man,” Deke said, “you figure too darn close. Now put up your money.”

  “It’s in my pocket,” Carson said. “You get a saddle an’ we’ll ride this horse.”